More Patience Needed

Yeah, assuming you go for the idea that all the things which annoy me these days are my fault or just beyond anybody's control, and patience will cure the  problem. I posit the idea that neither applies, way too often. And hey, we're not even going to discuss President* "Cheetolini".

Let's start with my morning shopping trip to WalMart. It was a short list. I wanted to hit the photo section to make some more photo cards. I also needed a very few sundries. Steve had his own list, so we went our separate ways at the door.

Photo is along the back wall in the store. Time was when this would have been a problem in itself, but my knees are so much better that I hardly think about it. So this wasn't on the problems list. Now on the other hand, sitting before their machines - anybody's machines - to generate photo cards has always been filled with annoyances for me. The machines do not operate in ways that I think they should. Symbols don't translate the way I find logical, and options I firmly believe should be available to me somehow just aren't available. Let's add that these machines change every year, so each visit is a new learning curve, and almost never is there a person familiar with them to help out. All this is true of every visit, and not just WalMart's machines either. So add a level of frustration already built into the anticipation of the event.

However, I had just been there a week ago to generate this season's cards. I finally located another favorite picture thought long lost, and decided to take advantage of that recent experience to make another set of cards for next year while I remembered how. Alas. Sometime in the last few days they changed the software in the machines. Honest! After getting bogged down a couple times trying to work through the program, I backed out to start over. I remembered exactly where to find the card template I used this year, decided you all would forget what it looked like and I could use it again, and started hunting.

It wasn't there.

Not anywhere.

I tried several different ways to reach it, and failed. I tried a number of other cards I'd considered  and rejected, but none of them were available either. And of course the young man who had been tending the photo counter when I arrived was now someplace else in the store. Nobody to ask for help now that I finally decided I needed to.

I pulled out my thumb drive and left. I'd had enough, and this wasn't a battle I needed to fight today. I figure any time in the next 370 days will do.

Next on my list was a dust mop. There is enough uncarpeted floor in this house that could use one's attention, and neither brooms nor vacuums quite do the job. Armed with memories of childhood, I headed over to the cleaning supplies section of the grocery department to hunt for one.

They had brooms. They had wet mops. They had chemicals galore.  They had weirdly shaped replacement pads in microfibers (!?!) to fit handles I didn't own and they weren't selling. No. Plain. Ordinary. Dust. Mops.

I double checked.

Nada.

I even expanded my search area a bit. Another of my pet annoyances with WalMart is once you know where something is located, they move stuff around the store. It ranks right up there with them discontinuing whatever my favorite brand or variety within a brand is. Some idiot probably told them that if they can get the customers walking through more of the store while they search, said customers will buy more other stuff on their way to their goal.

Actually, I've taken a poll of fellow frustrated customers. Most of us just get angry, and some of us simply go away.

I just cut my shopping list to the two absolutely-must-get items on it, and walked out. My patience for shopping was kaput.

So if any of you wonder why so many of us do more and more of our shopping online....